Thursday June 18, 07:42 PM
World powers push for financial sector reform
By Leigh Thomas
BRUSSELS (AFP) - World powers pushed for sweeping financial reforms to prevent another crisis Thursday, with EU leaders set to join Washington in a crusade for tough new controls despite British reservations.
A day after US President Barack Obama's administration unveiled a shake-up in US financial regulation, EU leaders at a summit were to approve plans for three new pan-European bodies to oversee banks, insurers and securities firms.
While existing national regulators would continue to oversee their financial sectors, the new authorities would coordinate across borders and potentially tell a national watchdog what to do if it falls out of line with EU rules.
London, one of the biggest financial markets in the world, fears however that the new authorities would be able to order governments to carry out costly bailouts of financial groups with taxpayer cash.
"European action must be practical and it must be effective," British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told journalists shortly before the two day summit got underway in Brussels.
"It is only logical that when a supervisory decision would have an impact for the taxpayer that decision should be for the relevant national authority," he added.
However, German Chancellor Angela Merkel brushed aside Britain's concerns, insisting that the new European supervisors should have the power to overrule national regulators in cases of disagreement.
"It's important for me that we have binding, common European rules ... and that transnational authorities can mediate within colleges of overseers," she said as she arrived for the summit.
Britain is not alone in its reservations on yielding regulatory powers to EU authorities with Slovenia, Slovakia and Romania also uneasy, diplomats said.
In light of such concerns, the leaders are likely to leave open the question of whether the new authorities will be able to overrule national financial sector regulators until more precise plans can be made in early autumn.
Britain, which is not part of the 16-nation eurozone, also has qualms about plans for a new "European Systemic Risk Board," to be chaired by the president of the European Central Bank.
While proposals to consolidate financial sector regulation in EU bodies have been around for years, governments only started taking them seriously after the crisis last autumn exposed the limits of overseeing big cross-border banks with multiple national regulators.
The EU move comes after Obama proposed on Wednesday what was billed as the most sweeping regulatory overhaul since the 1930s, aiming to stop future meltdowns and purge the finance system of lax oversight, greed and huge debts.
In particular, the US proposals would give the Federal Reserve expanded powers to oversee regulation on all finance firms or banks that pose a significant systemic risk to the wider financial infrastructure.
US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was to testify before the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday to back up the reform drive.
As EU leaders focus at the summit on reforming financial sector supervision, concerns are also growing that more needs to be done to tackle massive losses still lurking on the balance sheets of European banks but not yet recognised.
The European Central Bank warned on Monday that eurozone banks might have to take another 283 billion dollars (204 billion euros) in writedowns by the end of 2010, mainly to cover risky loans.
Credit rating agency Standard and Poor's warned on Tuesday that more than half of Europe's biggest banks face the prospect of a downgrade as they struggle to shoulder mounting credit losses.
Meanwhile, Switzerland's central bank on Thursday warned that the country's biggest banks were still heavily exposed to risky investments, urging them to bolster their capital base, reduce risk and cut costs.
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